Community of Writers Podcasts

Bibliocracy Radio: Irena Smith on Troika

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Irena Smith, the author of a defining, or perhaps further defining memoir from a writer, memoirist and raconteur whose storytelling accommodates or contextualizes nearly any circumstance, and bring insight, humor, and welcome complication. In her latest, Smith chronicles an unlikely if completely, joyfully contrived road trip up and down the California coast with her mother and her daughter, adding to the itinerary family history, politics, books, popular culture, Greek myth, scholarship, sociology, language and the series The White Lotus. The book is Troika: Three Generations, Three Days & a Very American Road Trip. Irena Smith is the author of a previous bestselling memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. That book demystified if also critiqued the college admissions process and asked big questions about the nature of striving, success, and learning, all using the thoughtful conceit of responding to those weird application essay prompts, which assume so much and often frighten students. Troika relies on an appreciation, a celebration writing and idiom, language and vocabulary. It doesn’t hurt that Smith is also an expert on Greek mythology, and along the way, teaches us bits of Soviet Russian culture, literature, and language. She is hilarious and ironic in the way, perhaps necessarily embraced by many immigrants to the United States, an ex-stranger in a still very strange land.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Closing Talk by Peter Orner: "This is Not an Ending"

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Welcome to the Podcast feed for the 2026 Summer Workshops in Olympic Valley. This week, we will upload daily craft talks, panels and readings as they happen. Be sure to subscribe to our feed to receive all recordings automatically.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Close Encounters of the Third-Person POV Kind” with Michelle Latiolais, Greg Spatz, Diana Wagman, Josh Weil Moderated by Tom Barbash

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Craft Talk by Chris Feliciano Arnold: “Blending the Truth: Case Studies in the Fusion of Genres and Forms”

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “The Single Moment: Crafting Powerful Short-Form Nonfiction” with Samuel Freedman, Julia Flynn Siler, Hector Tobar. Moderated by Blaise Zerega

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Evening Event: Readings from Janet Fitch, Dylan Landis, Diana Wagman, Amy Tan. Introduced by Andrew Tonkovich

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Landscapes of Memory and Mis-Memory” with Samuel Freedman, Kelly McMasters, Keenan Norris, Greg Spatz with Panelist/Moderator Sands Hall

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “The Short Story” with Lisa Alvarez, Tom Barbash, Dagoberto Gilb, Peter Orner. Moderated by Andrew Tonkovich

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Craft Talk by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: “The Motor of the Story: What Drives ‘Quiet’ Narratives”

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Lunch Round Table: "Latinex in Publishing" with Lisa Alvarez, Francisco Goldman, Dagoberto Gilb, Hector Tobar, Oscar Villalon

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Evening Reading: Francisco Goldman, Peter Orner, Shobha Rao, Bee Sacks

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Published Alum Reading: Jean Carstensen, Vishwas Gaitonde, Annelise Hatjakes, Pamela Rorke Levy (In Memoriam), Daniel Pope, A.M. Sosa introduced by Julia Flynn Siler

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Agents Panel with Michael Carlisle, Lucy Carson, Anna Ghosh, Michael Mungiello, BJ Robbins

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Book Editors Panel: Lashanda Anakwah (Tiny Reparations Books), Todd Portnowitz (Knopf). Moderated by literary agent Michael Mungiello

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - In Conversation: Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jason Roberts with his Agent Michael Carlisle

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Evening Reading and Conversation: “Research as Revelation: How Unexpected Archival Finds and Creative Research Techniques Uncover the Human Texture that Transforms a Story — Fact or Fiction — into Compelling Narrative” with Jeanne

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Ethical Urgency: Writing Politics with Nuance” with Francisco Goldman, Jean Guerrero, Michelle Latiolais, Oscar Villalon with Panelist/Moderator Keenan Norris

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Hello Characterization, Meet Dialogue” with Leslie Daniels, Janet Fitch, Patricia Meyer, Bee Sacks with Panelist/Moderator Dana Johnson

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Craft Talk by Katy Hays: “Foundations to Fixtures. How to Revise and Renovate a Novel (and Maybe Also a House)”

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Literary Journal Roundtable: Alta Journal (Blaise Zerega), Santa Monica Review (Andrew Tonkovich), ZYZZYVA (Oscar Villalon)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Evening Reading: Staff Read and Discuss Their Work: Ananda Lima, Kelly McMasters, Greg Spatz. Introduced by Sands Hall

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Despicable Them: When Good People Write Bad People” with Janet Fitch, Dana Johnson, Dylan Landis, Ananda Lima. Moderated by Diana Wagman

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Panel: “Scenes of the Crime: Setting and Plot” with Chris Feliciano Arnold, Tyler Dilts, Shobha Rao. Moderated by Andrew Tonkovich

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Craft Talk by Francisco Goldman: “All You Need Is Love. Though Not Only.” Introduced by Borchard Foundation Executive Vice-President Michael Spurgeon

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2026 - Opening Talk by Jason Roberts

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Irena Smith on Troika

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Craft Talk Archives - Dana Johnson, Peter Orner, Andrew Tonkovich: Three Voices on Voice

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Anticipating our Summer Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir, we will be sharing some of our favorite talks from past summers for the next few weeks. This week: 'Three Voices on Voice' a panel from the 2021 Summer Workshops in the Virtual Valley with Dana Johnson, Peter Orner and Andrew Tonkovich.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Craft Talk Archives - Amy Tan: 'About the About'

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Anticipating our Summer Workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir, we will be sharing some of our favorite talks from past summers for the next few weeks. This week: 'About the About' by Amy Tan.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Lisa K. Richter on Fly, My Darling

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Lisa K. Richter, who has written an elegant multi-form memoir meets biography, a book constructed in a series of short, impressionist, lyrical recollections and insights, portraits and meditations, all with music in the background and, indeed, in the foreground. In Fly, My Darling, Richter both condenses and expands, simultaneously, on an unlikely love story, one so meaningful and transformative that perhaps this multi-form collage of document, journal, poetry, family history and grief chronicle --- and again, always with music --- could be told only and most vividly in gorgeous fragments which, finally, in their combining, produce a full, rich portrait of both self and subject.

It’s the story of Lisa Richter and Lynda Roth, of a piano student and her teacher, of lovers, of a caregiver and the commitments demanded of love. Finally, the book esteems and celebrates the lost lover and, in its telling, introduces us to a writer who has used everything she has to find her own art and identity.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Higher Ed Union Victories

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:00:00 -0700

My guests this week have not made books, they have helped make history. They are academic workers. Yes, this is ostensibly a literary arts show but Bibliocracy often features discussion with activists, teachers, researchers, cultural critics, and historians. Lately I’ve featured experts on so-called AI in education, and on labor justice in higher education. Indeed, the motto of my own higher ed labor union is, instructively, (pun intended),“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.” Today’s show speaks, loudly, to what that means by way of a recent and historic victory by the United Auto Workers union, which represents higher ed workers at the University of California, one of the state’s biggest employers. At the same time, I am pleased to recommend a new title out from PM Press, Out of the Lab, Into the Streets. It is an oral history of the historic —- and winning! —- 2022 high ed union contract campaign for Academic Student Employees at the University of California and offers an occasion to speak with two union comrades, academic professionals with impressive bios as scholars and teachers and, yes, as activists, Kerri McCanna and Kien Le.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Christopher Mathias on To Catch a Fascist

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week in part two of a two-part show is Christopher Mathias, a journalist with a long career of covering the far right, including at HuffPost, The Guardian, MSNBC and Zeteo. His investigative reporting has charted the role of racist and often violent nativist groups like the Proud Boys in the politics and policies of the GOP. He’s out now with a remarkable book titled To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right which profiles the covert work of anti-fascist activists by way of a definitional history, case studies and a review of the tactics and traditions of the reactionary, racist, right from the Ku Klux Klan to the present, and perhaps most helpfully, their place in Trumpworld. In addition to charting the work of individual and organized anti-fascists, it presents a parallel narrative of the absurdly cartoonish if violent and dangerous work of multiple fascist groups in the context of the cartoonish, violent and dangerous ascendency of the Trumpist Republican Party. To Catch a Fascist, out from Atria Books, is not just a sociological study, current affairs book, and a corrective to the mainstream narrative but an exciting, engaging and dramatically rendered adventure story too. In this half hour we talk about the ethical code of anti-fascist political work, about the successful outing of dozens of organized radical right members, and Mathias’s own personal bravery in documenting these struggles.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Terese Svoboda on Hitler & My Mother-in-Law

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Terese Svoboda, author of two dozen books, in addition to short stories, poems, journalism, with work in The Atlantic, Slate, the New Yorker and the Santa Monica Review. She has won multiple literary prizes, and is a three-time winner of the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. Svoboda has written for and produced documentary film and wrote the libretto for the opera Wet, which premiered at LA’s Disney Hall. Svoboda’s engagement with so many stories, forms, and genres is both chronicled and exemplified in her latest, Hitler & My Mother-in-Law, gorgeously connected fragments, episodes, anecdotes, scenes and lots and lots of research, assembled ostensibly as an investigation into the life and career of Svoboda’s one-time mother in law, the trailblazing journalist Patricia Lochridge, whose life is quite impressively unbelievable --- in so many ways --- but the book is also an examination of what and how we believe, and who tells stories anyway, not to mention a memoir of author Terese Svoboda herself.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Stephen Cooper on River of Angels

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Stephen Cooper, the leading biographer, scholar, and booster of the writer John Fante. He is winner of an NEA for his fiction, a filmmaker, and creative writing teacher at CSULB for many years. He is the author of Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and cowrote and produced the Netflix Original Documentary Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski.

Cooper writes remarkable short stories, fiction which has appeared widely, including in The ThreePenny Review, American Fiction and the Santa Monica Review. Now ten of his short stories are collected in a volume titled River of Angels, out from the literary collective What Books Press --- the river being both metaphorical and very real indeed and the angels being human or imagined or fallen if always redeemable. This is a gorgeous and defining collection with a cover by legendary artist Gronk.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Poet Gustavo Hernandez on Bachelor

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is poet Gustavo Hernandez, last on this show to discuss his breakout poetry collection Flower Grand First. He is out now with Bachelor, six dozen short poems, many of which appeared in leading journals, here assembled thanks to FlowerSong press. The poet Diane Seuss, a big fan, helpfully celebrates the conceit of these poems, in which “the speaker moves like a ghost, from affiliation to singularity and back again, from son, brother, uncle, lover, to a state of profound bachelorhood, a traveler moving through a house of mirrors who encounters and re-encounters himself.” Indeed, these poems, with a carefully insistent throughline and in conversation with themselves, are about person and place, both prismatic and somehow also panoramic. Born in Jalisco, Mexico, Gustavo Hernandez was raised in Santa Ana, where he still lives and has served as the poet laureate of Orange County, California.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Maria Dolores Aguila on A Sea of Lemon Trees

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is María Dolores Águila, out now with A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez. It’s a poetic work of YA historical fiction inspired by the defining early 1930s “Lemon Grove Incident,” a narrative which celebrates a victory over institutionalized racism in San Diego, the struggle for educational equity, and the power of community through a telling from the point of view of then-12 year old Roberto Alvarez, chosen as the plaintiff for the legal case which challenged the segregation of Mexican American public school students. Águila is the author of an acclaimed picture book, Barrio Rising: The Protest the Built Chicano Park. Her website, where you can learn more, helpfully defines her work and art: “Stories of Resistance and Resilience.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Tracy Rosenthal at Hammer and Hope

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is journalist and activist Tracy Rosenthal, author of a terrific long piece at the new issue of a favorite online journal, Hammer & Hope, where they report on ICE raids in Los Angeles by way of the incredible Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU). Rosenthal is a frequent contributor to The New Republic, The Nation, the LA Times and is the author, with Leonardo Vilchis, of Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End The Housing Crisis, published by Haymarket. Rosenthal was a co-founder of the LA Tenants Union. Read the entire article, “Immigration Raids at This Home Depot Got More Aggressive but Less Effective. The LA Tenants Union Knows Why.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Alvarez & Guzman-Lopez at Beyond Baroque

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 15:00:00 -0800

I present a performance edition of the show, a recording made at a recent reading hosted by Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Foundation. Thanks to Jimmy Vega, director, and Eric Ahlberg for recording. Playwright Daniel Olivas, poet Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, and short story writer Lisa Alvarez shared their work on a recent Friday night at LA’s longest-running literary and cultural arts venue. Today you’ll hear Alvarez (introduced by Olivas, author of Waiting for Godinez) read from her collection Some Final Beauty and Other Stories and Guzman-Lopez (introduced by Alvarez) read from his California Southern: Writing from the Road, 1992-2025. (More from that evening on a later episode.) Meanwhile, both Alvarez and Guzman-Lopez explore, celebrate, and dramatize life, politics, place, and people in Southern California over decades in two breakthrough collections that could have been written only by devoted longtime chroniclers of our region.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Tom Zoellner- The Road Was Full of Thorns

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:00:00 -0800

A welcome regular on Bibliocracy, my end-of-year 2025 Fund Drive guest is Tom Zoellner, celebrated in a three-part series starting today which features his latest, The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War. This remarkable book researches, reconsiders, and revises the story of slavery’s inevitable end, focusing on a singularly remarkable and game-changing historical moment. Imagine enslaved people finding refuge in a Union fortress, and then being used politically as assets (“contraband”) in one of the most ironic strategies in the struggle toward win emancipation. About this book Keisha N. Blain of Four Hundred Souls writes, “A vital, illuminating, and beautifully written book that affirms that Black people freed themselves.” This book is offered as a thank-you gift courtesy of publisher sponsor The New Press.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Vishwas Gaitonde - On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 13:00:00 -0800

My guest is Vishwas Gaitonde, a much-published short story writer out with his debut fiction collection, stories which dramatize, explore, interrogate and celebrate human connection. His On Earth As It Is In Heaven won the 2023 Orison Prize for fiction. About it Margot Livesy wrote “Gaitonde captures the struggle to belong within a family and within a culture, and how language unites and divides us.” Vishwas Gaitonde’s work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and online with short stories in The Iowa Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Santa Monica Review, Epiphany, Gargoyle, and Mid-American Review.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: John Bellamy Foster on Einstein's "Why Socialism?"

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 13:00:00 -0800

My guest this week is the writer and Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster on his work in helping Monthly Review Press republish the classic Albert Einstein political essay “Why Socialism?” It’s available now in a gorgeous small book featuring an introduction by Foster and an earlier essay by John J. Simon. Albert Einstein’s “Why Socialism?”: The Enduring Relevance of His Classic Essay explains and contextualizes a forgotten history and celebrates the renowned scientist as a political radical, peace and justice activist, and public intellectual whose commitments are generally ignored or often misrepresented. “I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.” - Albert Einstein

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Daniel Olivas on Waiting for Godinez

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0800

My guest this week is the multi-form writer Daniel Olivas, author of 13 books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama including the subject of today’s Bibliocracy Radio, a play titled Waiting for Godínez: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts, from the University of New Mexico Press. Among other titles, he’s written Chicano Frankenstein: A Novel, and My Chicano Heart: New and Collected Stories of Love and Other Transgressions. He co-edited The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles and edited the landmark Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California. Olivas has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, Alta Journal, Jewish Journal, Zócalo, and The Guardian. When not engaging culture and literature, Olivas is a senior attorney with the California Department of Justice in Los Angeles where he specializes in land use, environmental enforcement, and affordable housing.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Poet Abby Walthausen

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0800

My guest this week is poet and prose writer Abby Walthausen, out now with a new poetry collection titled A Swale a Sort of Swaddle, a remarkable collection exploring and celebrating and, importantly, complicating the joys and challenges of domesticity, parenthood, and engagement of our region --- ecosystem, politics, place, history --- with language and the wonder that arrives with a new child. In addition to hosting the podcast A Lovely Wallpaper, her poetry has appeared in Public Domain Review, Paris Review Daily, the Atlantic, Zocalo Public Square, Atlas Obscura, Common-place, Mutha, Extra Crispy, LARB, and LitHub. Fiction has been published by Gigantic, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Made in LA anthology, Sycamore Review and Santa Monica Review. Here’s the link to A Lovely Wallpaper.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Nicholas Reiner of So Cal ACLU

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 10:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Nicholas Reiner, a poet and teacher and Associate Director of Media & Storytelling at the ACLU of Southern California. As part of Bibliocracy’s recent series of shows featuring scholars and activists confronting, explaining, and resisting Trumpism and the fascist GOP agenda, I’ve asked Reiner to catch me up on the work of the ACLU of Southern California, and also ask what he’s doing lately as an literary artist. He discusses why he writes, and reads a poem. Nicholas Tino Reiner is an American poet of Mexican heritage. His debut poetry chapbook Levitations was co-winner of the inaugural Alta California Chapbook Prize, a bilingual edition from Gunpowder Press. His poems have appeared in Spillway, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Western Humanities Review, and Zocalo Public Square. He earned an MFA in Writing from UC Irvine.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Nolan Higdon on All Things AI & Higher Ed

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Dr. Nolan Higdon. Today on Bibliocracy Radio I check in again with Nolan Higdon, an activist and scholar on whose perspectives I rely as a result of reading his important work in media literacy and media criticism. Dr. Nolan Higdon is the author of multiple books and articles and academic papers, all with helpfully instructive titles which invite consideration of his analysis of a recent American Association of University Professors (AAUP) report on AI,and his own recent post “AI in Schools: IAAUP report on AI.” We further discuss our own union’s sell-out to Big Tech and the impacts economic, social, and pedagogical of the further corporatization of higher education. Read his Truth Dig article Randi Weingarten’s AI Betrayal. And see his Substack: https://nolanhigdon.substack.com/

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Trevor Griffey on Corporate AI Teacher Training

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Trevor Griffey. While Bibliocracy Radio is largely devoted to the celebration of book culture and reading, I’ve also frequently and increasingly devoted episodes featuring public policy and political experts, writers, and activists like scholar, teacher, and union advocate Trevor Griffey. How to respond to this news from the New York Times? “The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest U.S. teachers’ union, said on Tuesday that it would start an A.I. training hub for educators with $23 million in funding from three leading chatbot makers: Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Robin Romm on Radical Empathy

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Robin Romm, author of a breakout 2007 collection of stories, The Mother Garden, a celebrated memoir,The Mercy Papers and, now, a new collection titled Radical Empathy. She’s been awarded an O. Henry Prize in short fiction. Her journalism and nonfiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Wired, and Slate. Today she's joining me to read from and discuss the ten stories collected in Radical Empathy, some of which appeared originally in Sewanee Review, ZYZZYVA, The Missouri Review and other top-notch literary journals. Romm's fiction draws favorable comparison to the work of Grace Paley and Amy Hempel for its empowering, funny, sly, insightful and sincerely honest characterizations and worldview.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: ALA Banned Books Week

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:00:00 -0700

I’m pleased to host American Library Association President Sam Helmick on the work of that organization and the upcoming ALA Banned Books Week 2025, October 5 - October 11. This year’s theme: “Censorship is so 1984. Read for Your Rights.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Oscar Villalon on ZYZZYVA’s Fortieth

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 13:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Oscar Villalon, editor in chief of ZYZZYVA journal. Together we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the esteemed West Coast literary journal founded by Howard Junker, and which has printed so much important poetry and prose, art, photography and more. Villalon has lately made big changes to the journal yet kept true to its mission. Oscar Villalon is a journalist and former book reviewer with a long career in the literary arts, and his own work has been published in The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Alta, Lit Hub,and more. To subscribe or otherwise learn more about one of the essential cultural outfits in the West, see its website: www.zyzzyva.org.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Charles Hood on Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is poet, prose writer, nature writer and photographer Charles Hood. In his newest book he has written a nature guide, travel adventure and, most movingly, a memoir in scenes of confession and revelation, self-discovery and joy. Out now from Heyday, it’s a collection of 18 essays gathered, with photographs, as Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds: A Sideways Look at the Pacific Ocean and Everything In It. Recently retired from teaching, his previous books include Nocturnalia, A Consideration of Nature at Night, and A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature. In addition to traveling the world to study nature, he is also the author of the poetry collections South x South and Partially Excited States. Praise for Hood arrives from no less than Jonathan Franzen, who writes: “Among nature writers now working, Charles Hood is my favorite.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Dawna Kemper & Miles Parnegg

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 15:00:00 -0700

This week I share an edited version of readings by two more contributors to the latest Santa Monica Review. Taped in front of a live audience at a spring issue launch celebration, writers Dawna Kemper and Miles Parnegg read their work. Kemper has been published widely, including in ZYZZYVA, Ecotone, and The Kenyon Review. She is a frequent SMR contributor. Parnegg’s work has appeared in Blue Mesa Review and Citric Acid. He is a recent graduate of the UC Irvine Writing Program. In this special performance edition of Bibliocracy, Kemper reads “Harmony” and Parnegg reads “Crossing.”

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Stephen D. Gutierrez & Sean Bernard in Performance

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 15:00:00 -0700

This week an edited version of readings by two contributors to the latest Santa Monica Review. Taped in front of a live audience at a spring issue launch celebration, writers Stephen D. Gutierrez and Sean Bernard share from their recent work. Gutierrez reads sections from his novella Captain Chicano Draws a Line in the American Sand and Bernard reads from his short story “Big Sur,” featured in the spring 2025 issue of the Santa Monica Review. Both writers have impressive publication histories. Check out their respective websites and visit the SMR site for more on the journal.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Special: Closing Talk by Sameer Pandya

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Welcome to the Podcast feed for the 2025 Summer Workshops in Olympic Valley. This week, we will upload daily craft talks, panels and readings as they happen. Be sure to subscribe to our feed to receive all recordings automatically. A full schedule of events can be found here.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel: "The Short Story" with Tom Barbash, Dana Johnson, Maceo Montoya, Gregory Spatz. Moderated by Andrew Tonkovich

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 19:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel: "Bringing History to Life: Techniques, Challenges, and the Social Responsibility of the Writer" with Jamie Ford, Charlie Haas, Julia Flynn Siler, Amy Tan. Moderated by Sands Hall

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 08:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - "Oh What a World, What a World...! Worldbuilding - The Art of Creating and Sustaining a Fictional World" with Katy Hays, Rhoda Huffey, Brenda Lozano, Maceo Montoya. Moderated by Andrew Tonkovich

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 08:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Craft Talk by Samuel Freedman: "Using Family History to Craft a Narrative." Introduced by Brian Eule

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Special Event: Research Rx: How to Address Research Roadblock with Bernice Yeung and Julia Flynn Siler

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 13:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel - Agents (1/2)Hour with Michael Carlisle, Annie Hwang, Michael Mungiello, Peter Steinberg. Moderated by Maya Ziv

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - "Demystifying Publishing - The Book Editor's Panel" with Jessica Case (Pegasus Books), Ben George (freelance, formerly Little, Brown), Alexander Star (Farrar Straus Giroux), Maya Ziv (Dutton). Moderated by Michael Mungiello

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Special Event: Lunch with my Editor, with Rickey Fayne and Maya Guthrie (Assistant Editor at Little, Brown)

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel - "Methods of Revealing - Which Form Best Serves my Material - Memoir, Essay, Narrative Nonfiction, or Some Hybrid" with Frances Dinkelspiel, Brian Eule, Robin Romm, Sands Hall. Moderated by Mary Melton

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel: “And Then the Queen Died of Grief: on Plot” with Venita Blackburn, Kirsten Chen, Jamie Ford, Amy Waldman. Moderated by Katy Hays

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Craft Talk by Sands Hall: “Hurling the Boot. Boarding the Dog: On Scene”

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel: Literary Magazines with Andrew Tonkovich (Santa Monica Review), Oscar Villalon (ZYZZYVA), Mary Melton (Alta Journal), and Maceo Montoya (Huizache)

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Panel - "What We Talk About When We Talking - On Dialogue" with Vanessa Hua, Dana Johnson, Lauren Markham, Patricia Meyer. Moderated by Sands Hall

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 15:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Craft Talk by Rickey Fayne: "Show and Tell: How Objects and Images Reveal Character and Advance Plot"

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:00:00 -0700

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2025 - Opening Talk by Robin Romm: Your Imagination is Not a Capitalist: Attention as Craft"

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: L. Annette Binder on Child of Earth and Starry Heaven

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

This week: L. Annette Binder, the author of the short story collection Rise, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize, and the novel The Vanishing Sky. Now she’s out with a small, personal, if emotionally, scientifically, poetically encyclopedic book, a meditation exploring her late mother’s dementia. Titled Child of Earth and Starry Heaven, it’s a biography of a person and of a disease, an investigation of Alzheimer’s, and a daughter’s chronicle of attention and care. Part journal, part meditation, part scholarship, this is a multi-form and well-researched account of what Binder learned about the disease, her mother, and herself, and a generous gift to others.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez on California Southern

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0700

This week: journalist and poet Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, out with a collection decades in the making. Published by Hinchas Press, he joins me this week to read from and talk about California Southern: Writing from the Road 1992-2025. Longtime radio reporter for LAist (89.3 FM in Southern California), Guzman-Lopez is a chronicler of the personal and political, a civic witness and a cultural guide with a multi-lingual voice and perspective full of empathy, insight, humor, and wisdom. A founder of the Taco Shop Poets and writer/producer of the podcast The Forgotten Revolutionary, this autobiographical poetry project assembled by Guzman-Lopez tells the life stories of not just one witness to our civic life but stories of individuals, communities, and movements.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Emily Greenberg on Alternative Facts

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 14:00:00 -0700

Emily Greenberg joins us this week. She is the author of a debut short story collection, Alternative Facts, one of the most remarkable literary, political, and sociologically urgent --- not to mention funny and smart --- books I’ve read lately. Inspired in part by the writing of Thomas Pynchon, by what passes for reality, and offering a media and political critique of our post-truth moment, it’s if the Zeitgeist had offered Greenberg a writing prompt, to which she carefully, elegantly, almost scientifically responded. In seven short stories, we are reminded of and challenged to reconsider “real” people and events, including Kellyanne Conway, George W. Bush, B.F Skinner, and the false emergency alert of a nuclear attack on Hawaii. Her work has appeared widely. Lately Greenberg compiles the online “Lest We Forget the Horrors” series for McSweeney’s.

Music: Hot Nights by DreamAudio

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Amy Gerstler on Is This My Final Form?

Thu, 29 May 2025 14:00:00 -0700

This week: Acclaimed poet Amy Gerstler, author of 11 collections including Scattered at Sea, long-listed for the National Book Award and Creature, a New York Times Notable Book. Amy Gerstler’s newest book is out, a collection titled Is This My Final Form?, a funny, smart, polemical engagement or perhaps demand that we “keep walking,” keep living, keep noticing, keep evolving, keep celebrating. Of the three dozens poems collected here, some appeared originally in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Columbia Poetry Review and Mississippi Review. The book is out now --- happy spring! --- from Penguin and includes many forms --- odes, sonnets, and even a long poem which announces itself as a one-act play. I’m pleased that she reads half a dozen poems from the book for us.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Sameer Pandya on Our Beautiful Boys

Tue, 20 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

This episode contains both parts of a two-part show featuring novelist and short story writer Sameer Pandya on his newest novel, Our Beautiful Boys. It is receiving enthusiastic reviews as well as both popular and critical attention. Pandya’s cultural criticism has appeared widely, including in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Atlantic, Salon, and Sports Illustrated. Our Beautiful Boys is a simultaneously insightful sociological study and tantalizing mystery story set in an affluent community where football, family, social media, status, ethnicity, teenage jargon and identity offer clues meant to explore conflict and consider ethical behavior, easy expectations and difficult, complicated realities. With humor and empathy, and sharp insights into class and culture, Our Beautiful Boys is an unsparing if also empathetic study of aspiration, hypocrisy, and the struggles which some adults seem to pass on to their children.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Andrew Nicholls: As Man is to God

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 11:00:00 -0700

My guest is Andrew Nicholls. He's written extensively for television print and stage, and produced both a memoir and a how-to comedy writing book. Now he’s out with a long poem on the making of filmmaker Werner Hertzog’s film Fitzcarraldo titled As Man is to God: A Poem on the Making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Janice Shapiro on Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:00:00 -0700

I welcome back screenwriter and short story writer Janice Shapiro, out with her full-length graphic novel Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship, a coming-of-age story about young women who discover their place in the world.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Nolan Higdon on the Industrial Information Media Complex

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:00:00 -0700

I welcome Dr. Nolan Higdon, a longtime media/civic literacy expert and critical media scholar, as well as activist and educator.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 14:00:00 -0800

My guest is the art historian Stephen F. Eisenman, collaborator with legendary artist Sue Coe on the new collection The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism, out now from O/R Books.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Lisa Alvarez Reads "False Flag"

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 14:00:00 -0800

This week we simultaneously mark a maddening anniversary and celebrate joyful creative resistance with a reading of her 2021 short story “False Flag” by writer, teacher, and editor Lisa Alvarez.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Andrew Tonkovich on A Lovely Wallpaper

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:00 -0800

For this month’s fund drive first edition I air an edited version of a terrific podcast hosted by writer Abby Walthausen featuring me --- of all people! --- as a guest. Its topic is the writer and artist whose work I curated for an exhibition on December 3rd through December 13 at Cerritos College.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Chuck Rosenthal on Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 10:00:00 -0800

I host novelist and memoirist Chuck Rosenthal, author of the Loop trilogy and Never Let Me Go, among many books. His latest, Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest, is what writer Michael Ventura calls a “gentle phantasm,” a short book which imagines the role of the reader right into the writing, and into the lives of the writer and characters…here, the writer/characters John Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Coleridge, Lord Byron, and their pals The Romantics.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: David L. Ulin on Thirteen Question Method

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:00:00 -0800

I host editor, anthologist, book reviewer, and essayist David L. Ulin, who has written about Los Angeles and Southern California for decades, assembling the defining Joan Didion collection for the Library of America, reviewing books and assigning articles and reviews of and about our literary region, and offering his own original short stories and acclaimed essays too.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Gary Amdahl reads "The Breezeway"

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0800

Today, a reading by a favorite writer, Gary Amdahl, author of Visigoth, I Am Death, The Intimidator Still Lives in Our Hearts and, out now, The Creative Writers: A Burlesque of the Imagination on Totalitarian Themes in the Manner of Émile Cohl and Les Arts Incohérents Harry Everett Smith, and Hanna-Barbera.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Brittney Corrigan on The Ghost Town Collectives

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0800

My guest for today is poet and, lately fiction writer Brittney Corrigan. Her recent poetry collection Solastalgia explored themes of ecological crisis and now, with The Ghost Town Collectives, she creates in short albeit very poetic short stories, a vision of the transformations around us, an emotional and political and mythic apprehending of the Anthropocene investigating and interrogating and imagining and observing the real-time, real-life global climate crisis in all its facets.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Banned Books Week with ALA President Cindy Hohl

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0800

I present my annual program celebrating Banned Books Week (September 22-29) with special guest American Library Association (ALA) President Cindy Hohl. This year’s Banned Books Week 2024 theme is “Freed Between the Lines,” an observance of the freedom found in the pages of books and the need to defend that freedom from censorship.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Steve Wasserman: Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It’s a Lie

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 12:00:00 -0800

My guest for the first of a three-part series is Steve Wasserman, the legendary editor, publisher, writer, agent, and arts and literature advocate with decades of experience and engagement and friendships which are now ours to read about in his essential collection, Tell Me Something,Tell Me Anything,Even If It’s a Lie: A Memoir in Essays.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Corey Robin on the Reactionary Mind

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 19:00:00 -0800

I present excerpts from one of the most requested, most popular, and perhaps, alas, most enduring and relevant of the hundreds of shows I have hosted over more than fifteen years of Bibliocracy Radio. Corey Robin’s landmark The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin is a primer, a take-apart, an essential guide to understanding, critiquing, and fighting the Right.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Peter Carr: “Artist for Survival”

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0700

A program celebrating a long-ago artist and writer whose work I am curating at an upcoming gallery show. Today I read his self-published book, Aliso Creek, a singular and defining introduction to the work of Peter Carr (1925-1981) and invite listeners to visit the late October show I am helping curate at Cerritos College Art Gallery.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Jackie Wu: On the Front Lines of Democracy

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 13:00:00 -0700

My guest is Jackie Wu, who worked for the Orange County Registrar of Voters. She's written a firsthand account titled On the Front Lines of Democracy: An Election Official’s Story of Protecting the Vote in 2020. It's an insider’s account of administering, defending, and advocating for one of the nation’s best voting systems.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 15:00:00 -0700

I attended the recent launch party reading celebrating the arrival of a must-read, must-own anthology. Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California is out from the new collaborative publisher Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library. It includes essays which write and rewrite stories and experiences of California with a range of writers.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Larry Beinhart on Salvation Boulevard

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0700

Today, my guest is Larry Beinhart, perhaps best known for a novel adapted into the film Wag the Dog (American Hero) but today talking about and reading from Salvation Boulevard. It’s both a detective story and a novel of big ideas, about “faith” and skepticism, a murder mystery with philosophical chops.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Victoria Patterson on Drift

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Today, my 2009 interview with Victoria Patterson on her debut book, Drift, a defining —- for the author and her hometown, Newport Beach —- short story collection from and about Orange County, California. This is where it started for the writer Victoria Patterson, who with Drift was a finalist for the California Book Award, the 2009 Story Prize, with Drift selected as one of the best books of 2009 by The San Francisco Chronicle. Since then she’s written the novel The Little Brother and a second short story collection titled The Secret Habit of Sorrow. She is also the author of The Peerless Four and the Edith Whartonesque OC classic, This Vacant Paradise.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Luis Alberto Urrea on Into the Beautiful North

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 11:00:00 -0700

Today, my 2010 interview with Luis Alberto Urrea on his smart, funny, sincerely moving Into the Beautiful North, a comic and woman-centered take on the classic film The Magnificent Seven by way of a border adventure story with a twist. It’s a sort of alternative version of his award-winning nonfiction classic The Devil’s Highway but with a light, humorous, humane touch.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Dylan Landis on Normal People Don’t Live Like This

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 14:00:00 -0700

Today, my 2009 interview with Dylan Landis on her debut novel-in-stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like This, a singularly poignant, tough and smart coming-of-age novel set in 1970s New York City. This is a good one, folks.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Mary Jones on the Goodbye Process

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 08:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is short story writer Mary Jones. She has written and published dozens of short stories for many years, earning acclaim, and establishing a reputation, all of which is affirmed in her debut collection, 28 short stories, titled The Goodbye Process. The short and short-short stories offered in The Goodbye Process are dark, funny, meditative, often initially realistic episodes which necessarily and logically enter the comically, tragically absurd via empathetic and artful fable. These are economically and powerfully communicated short moments and everyday stories about loss and tragedy and betrayal transformed into deeply resonant, deadpan sincere, sometimes fabulist but simultaneously grounded tales of the familiar turned profound and, occasionally, tragedy turned into empathy or painful wisdom.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Kevin Allardice on WEFT

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Kevin Allardice, the author of short stories and five novels, of which I have no read three. His most recent is Weft, and it’s a full-length work like his debut novel, Any Resemblance to Actual Persons. I’m also a big fan of his shorter works, closer to novellas but no less rich in voice, wit, fabulist or absurdist themes, each a celebration of association, word choice, digression and totally entertaining immersion in character and place. These are totally engaging romps, fast-paced, and wildly imaginative. He discusses all his books, his writing career, and especially to talk about and read from Weft, a kind of horror novel meets critique of late-stage capitalism, take-apart of the long con, and an examination of the collapse of a self-constructed identity. Wicked fun, thoughtful play, and both an embrace and elevation of the form. Here’s his website: https://kevinallardice.com/

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Radio: Suzanne Greenberg on Shopping for Dad

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is Suzanne Greenberg, a much-published short story writer whose novel Lesson Plans was a Library Journal Editor’s pick. Her previous short story collection Speed-Walk and Other Stories won a Drue Heinze Literature Prize. Now Suzanne Greenberg is out with Shopping for Dad and Other Stories, its title, from one of the defining stories, a helpful nod to the wry, funny, sad engagement with irony, sincerity, loss and unlikely insights offered in these sixteen stories, many centered on missing children, estranged spouses, and disappeared domestic objects. Deadpan tragedy meets necessary if qualified hope, with plenty of attention to the everyday quantification of emotional transaction. Shopping for Dad is out now from Arroyo Seco Press. Suzanne Greenberg teaches creative writing at Cal State University Long Beach

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Season 2 Episode 1 - THE BIG LISTEN: Journal of the Plague Years

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:00:00 -0700

To kick off the next season of Bibliocracy Radio on Community of Writers Podcasts, we are presenting a very special episode.

A Journal of the Plague Years, a compendium of work which developed out of the excellent online journal founded by writer Susan Zakin.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Writers Workshops 2024 - Closing Talk by Gail Tsukiyama

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 16:00:00 -0700

Gail Tsukiyama delivers the closing talk to round out the fifty-fourth year of the Community of Writers summer workshops. Introduced by Karen Joy Fowler.

Gail Tsukiyama is the author of nine novels, including Women of the Silk, The Samurai’s Garden, The Color of Air, and her latest novel, The Brightest Star. She has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence, and the Asia Pacific Leadership Award from the Center of the Pacific Rim and the Ricci Institute. One of fifty authors chosen by the Library of Congress to participate in the first National Book Festival in Washington D.C., she has taught at San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley, and Mills College.

Writers Workshops 2024 - Panel: ”Writing Beyond the Conference”

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 18:00:00 -0700

Alex Espinoza, Monica West, Andrew Nicholls & Janet Fitch. Moderated by Lisa Alvarez.

Panel: ”Narrative Voice & Dialogue”

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Dana Johnson, Karen Joy Fowler, Susanne Pari, Amy Tan & Monica West discuss Voice & Dialogue in this panel.

Writers Workshops 2024 - Craft Talk by Rachel Howard - “Writing from the Heat of Moment: Improvisation in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing”

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 14:00:00 -0700

Rachel Howard delivers a craft talk on Improvisation in writing.

Rachel Howard is the author of a novel, The Risk of Us, and a memoir, The Lost Night. Her stories and essays have appeared in StoryQuarterly, ZYZZYVA, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues. She served as Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow and Interim Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College and teaches nonfiction and novel writing at Stanford Continuing Studies. For more than 20 years she has written dance criticism for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Writers Workshops 2024 - A Panel: “ Fact, Truth, and Imagination: Craft Choices for Different Genres”

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 16:00:00 -0700

Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Sands Hall, Michelle Latiolais, Keenan Norris, and David Ulin discuss genre.

Writers Workshops 2024 - A Panel: On Plot

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Katy Hays, Alex Espinoza, Tyler Diltz, Stacy Spruill, and Martin J. Smith discuss plot in fiction. Moderated by Andrew Tonkovich.

Writers Workshops 2024: A Craft Talk by Tom Barbash: “What Doesn’t Break Us: The Art of the Story”

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:00:00 -0700

Tom Barbash presents an exploration into "Foster" by Claire Keegan, and "Switzerland" by Nicole Krauss.

Tom Barbash is the author of four books as well as reviews, essays, and articles for publications such as McSweeney’s, Tin House, the Believer, Narrative Magazine, ZYZZYVA, and the New York Times. His short story collection Stay Up With Me was nominated for the Folio Prize and picked as a Best Book of the Year by the Independent of London, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. His novel The Last Good Chance was awarded The California Book Award and was a Publishers Weekly and Anniston Star Best Book of the Year. His nonfiction book On Top of the World, about the fate of the bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald on 9/11, was a New York Times Bestseller. A well-regarded speaker, panelist, and interviewer, Barbash teaches the novel, short fiction, and nonfiction at California College of the Arts. His most recent book, the novel The Dakota Winters, was a National Bestseller, and named as an Editors Choice by The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Magazine, Rolling Stone and People.

Writers Workshops 2024 - A Craft Talk by Martin J. Smith: “Difficult Interviews: Getting the Reluctant to Talk”

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 13:00:00 -0700

Interviewing advice from someone who has been doing it for nearly fifty years.

Writers Workshops 2024 - Literary Agents Panel

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

BJ Robbins, Kirby Kim, and Michael Mungiello. Moderated by Katy Hays.

Writers Workshops 2024: Book Editors Panel

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Reagan Arthur, Leland Cheuk, Jean Garnett, and Dan Lopez. Moderated by Michael Mungiello.

Panel: West Coast Literary Journals

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 17:00:00 -0700

Lily Grimes (Faultline), Andrew Tonkovich (Santa Monica Review/Citric Acid), David Ulin (Air/Light), and Blaise Zerega (Alta Journal) discuss west coast literary journals.

Panel: The Short Story

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Dana Johnson, Sameer Pandya and Gregory Spatz discuss the craft of the short story. Moderated by Tom Barbash.

Writers Workshops 2024 - A Craft Talk by Victoria Patterson:“Show, Tell, Show, Tell - Scene and Summary in Fiction & Nonfiction”

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:00:00 -0700

Victoria Patterson kicks off day 2 of our writers' workshops in olympic valley with a talk on show vs. tell.

Victoria Patterson’s latest story collection, The Secret Habit of Sorrow, was published in 2018. The critic Michael Schaub wrote: “There’s not a story in the book that’s less than great; it’s a stunningly beautiful collection by a writer working at the top of her game.” Her novel The Little Brother, which Vanity Fair called “a brutal, deeply empathetic, and emotionally wrenching examination of American male privilege and rape culture,” was published in 2015. She is also the author of the novels The Peerless Four and This Vacant Paradise, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her story collection, Drift, was a finalist for the California Book Award and the Story Prize and was selected as one of the best books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle. She currently teaches at Antioch University’s Master of Fine Arts program.

Writers Workshops 2024: Panel - “Reliably Unreliable First Person”

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 16:00:00 -0700

With Leslie Daniels, Leland Cheuk, Louis B. Jones, Andrew Tonkovich. Moderated by Victoria Patterson.

Writers Workshops 2024 - Panel: “Writing the Historical in Fiction and Nonfiction”

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:00:00 -0700

Jason Roberts, Janet Fitch, Karen Joy Fowler, and Gail Tsukiyama, moderated by Sands Hall.

Writers Workshops 2024: Craft Talk by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: "Writing a Life: A Character's Journey Across Generations"

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 14:00:00 -0700

The first craft talk of the 2024 Writers Workshops in Olympic Valley: Staff member and board member Margaret Wilkerson Sexton kicks off day 1 with a craft talk on writing a character's journey throughout a life: Writing Across Generations. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast feed to keep up with this summer's excellent programming, wherever you may be. Thanks for listening!

Podcast Special: Gill Dennis's 2014 Opening Talk

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 13:00:00 -0700

As a podcast special, we wanted to share the late Gill Dennis’s welcome address from 2014, ten years ago. Gill Dennis died less than a year later in May of 2015. He was an enormous part of our community for decades. Along with Tom Rickman, he founded and directed the Community of Writers Screenwriting Program. His screenwriting credits include Return to Oz, Walk the Line, and Forever. He was Master Filmmaker in Residence at the American Film Institute Conservatory and won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Direction in Theatre. He taught his “Finding the Story Workshop” at the Community of Writers for many years, which has lately been revived, and is now taught by Gill’s good friend Leslie Daniels. We are missing Gill this year, and remembering his wisdom, wit, and joyous presence as we approach the ten-year anniversary of his death. Please enjoy this podcast throwback to 2014, and remember to subscribe to our podcast feed on your favorite app to stay abreast of the goings on at this year’s Writers Workshops from Olympic Valley.

Writers Workshops 2024: Opening Talk by Leland Cheuk: It's Not About You Until It Is

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0700

Leland Cheuk Welcomes us to the 2024 Writers' Workshops from Olympic Valley, introduced by Andrew Tonkovich.

Bibliocracy Episode 13: Federico Finchelstein on Wannabe Fascists

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is a world-renowned expert on fascism, populism, and dictatorship. Federico Finchelstein’s newest book is The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy. He makes important distinctions even while educating, contextualizing, and warning, once again, of fascism’s rise globally and explaining its antecedents. Finchelstein carefully considers what false or “wannabe fascism” is in the context of populism, Trump, dictatorship, all revisited, defined, and redefined toward apprehending the difference between movements, strategies and singular leaders. The book is a history, a thesaurus, a field guide, an encyclopedic review and, yes, delivers a not entirely unexpected if important argument. Federico Finchelstein teaches history at the New School for Social Reseearch and Eugene Lang College in New York City. His previous books include From Fascism to Populism in History and A Brief History of Fascist Lies.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 12: Joan Braune on Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 14:00:00 -0700

Joan Braune has written a scholarly book which reads to this admirer like a handbook of liberatory insights, a history and a glossary, a philosophy text for beginners, with a provocative analysis at its conclusion. If you think, as did I, you knew or understood the basics of fascism and the far right, the research and writing of Joan Braune will disabuse you, delight you, engage and inspire you. Out from Routledge, her short but singular contribution to the “Studies in Fascism and the Far Right” series develops from, indeed, philosophical study but also personal experience fighting fascists in the Pacific Northwest. The book is titled Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements: From Void to Hope, a helpful title, instructive, and, finally, one of the most empowering books on the subject I have read lately, an intellectual self-defense handbook. Joan Braune is Lecturer in Philosophy at Gonzaga University. She is author an co-editor of various title including two books on Erich Fromm’s critical theory and a forthcoming book, The Ethics of Researching the Far Right.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 11: Molly Giles on Life Span

Thu, 09 May 2024 11:00:00 -0700

Novelist, short story writer, and acclaimed teacher Molly Giles. The author, most recently, of the novel The Home for Unwed Husbands, is out with a memoir in short episodes, vignettes, and meditations, built on her life crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. In Life Span, Giles defines, examines, celebrates, and interrogates her writing life by way of the iconic bridge, each chapter marking a year in her own life. A terrific conceit, this is a joyful, wry, honest autobiography of a person, place, and avocation, the insights of a writer on whom nothing is lost, so much is observed, described, assessed and engaged in economical and poetic language.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 10: Venita Blackburn on Dead in Long Beach, Califonria

Thu, 09 May 2024 11:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is acclaimed short story writer and, now, novelist Venita Blackburn. Her debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California arrives after two acclaimed short story collections, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl. This new novel is a multi-form, multi-voiced chronicle of loss, self-discovery, of desperately sad if also playful strategies of identity and investigation. Its brilliant premise is matched by its engagement with language, much of it delivered via a collective consciousness which frames the storytelling, a formal device which makes such good sense because the protagonist is an author herself, of a dystopian graphic novel. Dead in Long Beach, California is also a story of a Black LA family and of life in Southern California. Venita Blackburn’s earlier work has appeared in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction and the New Yorker online. She is an associate professor in creative writing at Cal State Fresno and founder-president of Live, Write, an organization that offers free creative writing workshops for communities of color.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 9: Julie Schumacher on The English Experience

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guest today is Julie Schumacher, who will talk about and read from the final book in a trilogy which has earned its place on the shelf with other favorites in the weird, wonderful genre of academic satire, right next to Richard Russo’s Straight Man and, as it happens her first two novels chronicling the cheerfully doomed life of one Professor Jason Fitger, a divorced professor of English and creative writing, stalled-out writer and all-around sour puss…if for good reason, or at least good enough, by which we mean bad. The English Experience, out from Doubleday, follows Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement, in which Schumacher engages and exploits and critiques nearly every possible --- and impossible --- complication or challenge facing our compromised but, in his way, committed hero. Except, hilariously,for a travel abroad program sponsored by Payne University, pronounced “pain,” for which Fitger, exactly the wrong (!) faculty member, is chosen (meaning coerced into) as teacher and chaperone. Julie Schumacher is the author of three Jason Fitger novels, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and author of fourth novel, The Body Is Water. She teaches in the Department of English at the University of Minnesota.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 8: A Tribute to Dwight Yates (Part 2 of 2)

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guests this week further remember, celebrate, and, today, read from (!) the work of the late short story writer, teacher, friend and mentor Dwight Yates (1945-2023). I am joined in Part 2 of this “tribute” by Susan Straight (Mecca), Victoria Patterson (The Secret Habit of Sorrow), and Gary Amdahl (The Daredevils), all accomplished and acclaimed writers. Dwight Yates was the author of dozens of short stories, many of them available in two award-winning collections, Bring Everybody and Haywire Hearts and Slide Trombones. Note: This podcast is just not big enough to have hosted all the friends and students of Dwight, for which I apologize. By all means, write or host other tributes, and purchase, gift, and recommend his books and stories. His final gorgeous fiction appears in the newest (spring 2024) issue of the Santa Monica Review. Just sayin!

I am so grateful for the participation of these fellow Friends of Dwight Yates, and for the opportunity to pay tribute to this excellent writer and exemplary human being. Bring everybody!

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 7: A Tribute to Dwight Yates (Part 1 of 2)

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guests this week remember and celebrate the life and work of the late short story writer, teacher, friend and mentor Dwight Yates (1945-2023). I am joined by Susan Straight (Mecca), Victoria Patterson (The Secret Habit of Sorrow), and Gary Amdahl (The Daredevils), all accomplished and acclaimed writers for the first of a two-part show. Dwight Yates was the author of dozens of short stories, many of them available in two award-winning collections, Bring Everybody and Haywire Hearts and Slide Trombones. This podcast is just not big enough to have hosted all the friends and students of Dwight, for which I apologize. By all means, write or host other tributes, and purchase, gift, and recommend his books and stories. His final gorgeous fiction appears in the newest (spring 2024) issue of the Santa Monica Review.

I am so grateful for the participation of these fellow Friends of Dwight Yates, and for the opportunity to pay tribute to this excellent writer and exemplary human being. Next week, Part II, featuring more discussion and short readings (!) from his work.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 6: Amber A'Lee Frost on Dirtbag

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0700

My guest this week is the writer, activist and podcaster from Chapo Trap House, Amber A’Lee Frost. Her debut book Dirtbag is a personal memoir, a journalistic account, a political autobiography, a take-apart of grassroots collective action, an insider look at Democratic Socialists of America, Occupy Wall Street, the Bernie campaign and, yes, podcast culture --- all offered with great stories, wicked humor and yet smart, sincere analysis which defines the best of the so-called “dirtbag left.”

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 5: Theresa Bonpane on Sister Rebel

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 13:00:00 -0700

My very special guest is Theresa Bonpane, a legendary Southern California peace and justice, anti-war and anti-intervention activist. Her memoir, Sister Rebel, is out now from Red Hen Press, and she speaks with me about her life, sharing stories and poems and more. Because this is a fund drive edition, KPFK is happy to offer you a thank-you gift for your support. Thanks to Theresa and Red Hen Press, claim your gift of a copy of the memoir for a $75 pledge.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 4: Katherine Haake on What Books Press

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 13:00:00 -0700

My guest is novelist and short story writer Katherine Haake, a co-founder of What Books Press. Celebrating fifteen years, this collectively run publishing outfit has worked collaboratively with prose and poetry writers to create dozens of gorgeous books, and each featuring cover art by the legendary artist Gronk. For more on What Books Press see WhatBooksPress.com. For more on writer Katherine Haake see her website, KatherineHaake.com.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 3: David Kipen on Dear California

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 11:00:00 -0800

My guest today is David Kipen. He needs no introduction because he is himself the introducer, the anthologizer, the cultural historian, the literary booster and all-around celebrant of writers and literary culture for our state and our region. Book review editor, Director of Literature at the NEA, critic at large at the Los Angeles Times and, of course, founder-director of Libros Schmibros Lending Library. He’s one of a handful of go-to spokespersons for literary California, but he’s done that by being a sort of scholarly medium, a reviver, a teller of stories told by others, sometimes forgotten, urgently needing to be told. He wrote the introductions to four classic WPA Guides and edited the now landmark Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018. For this show he talks about and reads from the brand-new Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters. It’s a moment of celebration for readers, and for Bibliocracy.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 2: Reid Sherline on Rapture

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:00:00 -0800

In his prizewinning novella Rapture, debut writer Reid Sherline has with a very small book made an outsized contribution to the literature of dark, weird Southern California, a place (and moment) where the recklessness, confusion, disengagement of adults turns their ignored or innocent children into perversely exaggerated walking, talking, misbehaving monster versions of themselves. Set in the Valley in the early Seventies --- Viet Nam war, drugs, social upheaval, divorce, cars --- Rapture considers everyday suburban violence, religion, politics, and neglect from the perspective of a young protagonist whose experiences seem to mark those of a generation. A charismatic combat vet leads our anti-hero on a Book of Revelation-inspired journey in a coming-of-age story which seems to explain so much of our own current moment of fundamentalist religion, White Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories, endless war, and the infantilization of our politics. A moving and spooky and pitch-perfect novella, it’s the winner of the Harvard Review Chapbook Prize.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Bibliocracy Episode 1: Kelly Sather on Small in Real Life

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:00:00 -0800

This week my guest is Drue Heinz Literature Prize-winner KELLY SATHER. Her collection, Small in Real Life, features stories which are darkly funny, what I’d call a sort of Southern California feminist noir, but with sincerely and politically insightful portraits of women, as girls, as wives, as friends, as enemies. They are often set in real or comically dangerous settings, sometimes hard to tell which, and their pitch-perfect idiom is spooky, coercive, naïve or knowing. Sometimes it seems the characters, the authorial voice, or readers might not know which, not until the story ends, and even then! Thanks for tuning in for my discussion with her, and to hear Sather read.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.